DECORATING | CABANA CURATES | WORLD OF CABANA

Reduced in scale and intensified in detail, these interiors unfold behind glass cases, curio boxes, and cabinet doors, where doll houses, jewels, waxwork objects, and images are made for close looking. This edit steps inside the miniature, where craftsmanship expands as scale constricts. Read on for miniature marvels from the World of Cabana.

WORDS BY EMMA BECQUE | CABANA CURATES | MAY 2026

The grand entrance hall, published in 'Westwood House, An Architectural Masterpiece in Miniature' by Liza Antrim (Cider House Books, 2025).

Miniature scale has long shaped the decorative arts, often proving that craftsmanship is at its most exacting when space is reduced. In 17th-century European homes, elaborate poppenhuizen were commissioned not as children’s toys but as displays of wealth and domestic order, their cabinet doors opening onto tiny rooms lined with Delftware, folded linens, silverware, and painted walls. Elsewhere, miniature portraiture brought likeness into intimate scale, painted on vellum or ivory and worn in lockets, while horology compressed engraving, metallurgy and engineering into watch faces and movements no broader than a palm. 

Yet miniature marvels extend beyond objects. Across history, life unfolded within narrow domestic spaces, where one room might serve as the entire home, with a cabinet holding as much atmosphere as grand interiors. Miniature spaces could also offer retreat, fantasy or total acts of invention, whether in Queen Mary’s Doll’s House, where hundreds of makers condensed British craftsmanship into one meticulous interior, or contemporary makers constructing wax fruits, jewelled architecture and replicas, 1:12 scale, room by room. These small worlds remind us that decoration has never relied on size to leave a lasting impression.

Westwood House: A Craft Story in Miniature 

Image by Antony Crolla courtesy of Liza Antrim, author of 'Westwood House, An Architectural Masterpiece in Miniature' (Cider House Books, 2025).

Liza Antrim’s deeply personal doll’s house, Westwood House, is one-twelfth the size of the grand showpieces that inspired it, yet it deserves comparison on craft alone. Built by David West, this large (by miniature standards) and exquisitely detailed house features elegant 18th-century interiors: tapestries, parquet floors, muraled walls and painted ceilings. Its rooms suggest intimacy, narrative, and loving curation, as Ros Byam Shaw explores.

Inside Petronella Oortman's Tiny House

Pictured is the original doll's house commissioned by Petronella before her marriage to the wealthy Dutch merchant Johannes Brandt © The Rijksmuseum.

A house tour, but one-twelfth the size and twelve times more opulent. Behind cabinet doors, more lavish than most people's homes, lies a vision of domestic perfection in miniature, where tortoiseshell gleams, teacups are dusted, and the linen is tidily stacked in the attic. Emma Becque peeks behind the tiny curtains of the Rijksmuseum’s most extravagant interiors.

The Mouse Mansion 

In Karina's studio, shelves are stuffed with pint-size trinkets and recycled textiles awaiting transformation as accessories in her next scene. © Isabel Bronts. 

In Karina Schaapman’s extraordinary hand-crafted Mouse Mansion in Amsterdam, creatures better known for scuttling along the canals are granted a meticulously ordered world of their own. The mice may be toys, but their habitat exists far beyond a child's imagination, thanks to the work and commitment of this unique and visionary maker. Emma Becque and Isabel Bronts take a tour of this miniature Dutch marvel.

Tiny Masterpieces: Vicki Ambery-Smith

Images from Vicki Ambery-Smith and Paul Reid.

A lifelong observer of architecture, London-based Vicki Ambery-Smith transforms the built environment into delicate, wearable theatrical forms. From Oxford's spires to the sweeping lines of Zaha Hadid, her miniature structures distil centuries of design into silver and gold. Drawing on sources from ancient Greece to American modernism, each piece reflects personal fascination or private commission.

Queen Mary's Treasures: The World's Most Famous Dolls' House

The Queen's Bedroom, featuring walls covered in blue-grey damask, reflecting the style of the 1920s, and a box-spring horsehair mattress © Royal Collection Trust. 

Camilla Frances explores (or rather, peers into) one of the most famous interiors in the world: Queen Mary's exceptional dolls' house at Windsor Castle, a 100-year-old miniature marvel still considered to be an unsurpassed archive of British craftsmanship.

Miniaturists, Mulvany & Rogers

In the garden of a 17th-century farmhouse just outside Bath, Susie Rogers and Kevin Mulvany build miniature versions of some of the world’s most famed buildings. Working in 1:12 scale, they have recreated iconic locations, including Versailles and Buckingham Palace. For more than 30 years, they have worked side by side, drawing on their background in art history and shared interest in period buildings and atmosphere.

The Dolls' House Maker with an Enchanting Studio

Eric Lansdown, one of the world’s foremost dolls' house and aviary artists whose studio in the south of France is as enchanting as his creations. The craftsman, who exhibited at Homo Faber 2025, works inside the village’s medieval bishop’s hall - an atmospheric space where Roman temples, French châteaux and Napoleonic bridges stand tall.

Wax Worker, Davide Furno

At the age of 40, Davide Furno discovered an extravagant and irresistible collection at the Fruit Museum in Turin, created using the lost wax technique with (currently illegal) 19th century materials, such as Smyrna wax, cachalot fat and lead paint.

Attempting to recreate these small wax sculptures and this forgotten technique became his vocation. Davide's most popular creations are individual fruits placed on elegant turned wooden pedestals, equipped with a handwritten label and packaging inspired by 19th century apothecaries. But his creations can also be very complicated: clusters of fruit, cornucopias and dangerously balanced compositions.